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Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

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Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previously Boom's CEO said this: “That’s not travel, that’s like a thing you might hope to do once in a lifetime,” says Scholl, before adding, “Versus where we want to get, which is anywhere in the world in four hours for 100 bucks.”[1] Anywhere in the world in four hours for $100 USD really caught people's imagination and attention. I'm puzzled by how they will achieve this. [1] https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/bo…

New York to Sydney for $100 in 4 hours? My bullshit alarm is blaring. Unless they have a secret teleporter project they aren't telling people about. If you're burning dinosaurs to do that it is not happening, not unless oil becomes magically free and even then I think you would struggle to make ends meet.

> New York to Sydney for $100 in 4 hours? My bullshit alarm is blaring

LA to Sydney is $10k on a good day for lie flat. You could probably charge $15 even 20k a seat and (a) turn a profit (b) filling the plane.

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#114

Can't wait to live the good life of the 80/90s again with that our parents enjoyed with 5 hours flights to New York. More technology advances please so we can break through this zeitgeist of human pessimism and introspection. Onwards and upwards!

My parents certainly never did that. Very few parents did, the tickets were way out of the price range of the typical passenger. It's like pining for the days when people traveled in the opulant lounges of ocean going steamer ships, forgetting that the bulk of the people were crammed into tiny cabins with few amenities for the long journey.

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#115
Boom (YC W16) – Supersonic Passenger Airplanes:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11329286

I remember seeing this post about Boom going through YC, 9 years ago. It's really cool to see the founder laying out what he wanted to accomplish in the comments and then seeing it happen today. Especially fun looking back at those comments saying it couldn't be done and all the haranguing over the name "Boom" :)

Congrats to the Boom team! Such a great accomplishment.

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#116
So apparently the successor to the XB-1 test plane, Overture, is planned to be mainly a luxury airplane, similar to Concorde, just somewhat smaller.

I don't see a reason to be excited about this. Their CEO compared their test flight to the Falcon 1 rocket, the Falcon 9 precursor. But a better comparison would be Blue Origin's New Shepard, or Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipOne, because they also mainly offer luxury services. By contrast, the Falcon 9 rockets have real (non luxury) commercial and scientific value.

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#118

The angle of attack at both takeoff and touch down is pretty wild!

I can't let go of the suspicion that this could become some kind of military (drone or not) airframe.

The military has had supersonic aircraft since the 1950s, why would they care about this?

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#119

Is it okay/usual for the test pilot to partake in a glass of champagne so soon after landing? On a side note: Channing Tatum is a shoe-in for playing the pilot, Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg, if this ever gets made into a movie.

It's certainly better than before landing!

Re: Boom XB-1 First Supersonic Flight [video]

#120
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you make this profitable?

> How do you make this profitable? Selling it for more than it costs to build. Computer-based modelling, advances in our understanding of supersonic flight and sonic booms and a mature civil (and private) aviation industry make the profit case much more compelling than it was for the Concorde. (The real test will be in their engine.)

I assume the question was about the questionable economics of running a super-sonic airplane profitably.

The Concorde was notorious for bleeding money.

Maybe the premium aspect will be enough, given that we have a bigger and bigger chasm between rich and poor, or maybe the economics of running it won't compete against sub-sonic, lower fuel consumption planes.

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